White Onion Privilege with Chris Watson

September 2nd, 2016 Episode 53

Hi and welcome to the Brainstorm podcast. This is episode 53 and today is September 2nd, 2016. I’m Cory and my panel tonight are Destin, Angela, Rene, and Leo, with the always amazing Dave doing sound We’re here in Roman Empire studios in Regina, Saskatchewan. Tonight’s show is brought to you by Reasonist Ink, atheist, skeptic, and science based apparel. You can find them at ReasonistInk.com. Tonight’s guest is Chris Watson, blogger and host of the Podunk Polymath podcast

check out Chris' website by clicking the picture

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You can listen to Part one of this episode >>>>>>>here(available on September 4)You can listen to Part two of this episode>>>>>>>here(available on September 11)

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While researching this story I was directed by a link within it to an article by newstarget.com claiming that the AMA opposes mandatory vaccines. I’m not sure how reliable newstarget is but the claim seemed dubious so I googled “is the ama opposing mandatory vaccinations”. The first 7 articles that came up were from bullshit sites like Mercola.com, vaccines.news, natural news, and global research.ca and none of them have a legit source for their articles. I did however see the 8th article which was from Newsweek; a fairly reputable source for news. In an article from June of 2015 they talk about the AMA pulling religious exemptions out of the options for refusing vaccination.

Mike fucknut Adams claims that the story from Newstarget that used the phrase mandatory vaccinations is blocked by Facebook but the same exact story with the work compulsory isn’t blocked. Meanwhile his fuckwitted article that leaves spaces where the vowels should be is also allowed by facebook. Same with a post from David Wolfe that didn’t remove the vowels.

So Adams goes on to share some screenshots that I can’t verify. The first is supposed to prove the censorship of the words mandatory vaccinations and the second is supposed to show that they allow it after the word mandatory is changed to compulsory. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he completely fabricated the whole thing because he’s a giant lying scumbag. The rest of his article reads like some hyperbolic conspiracy tripe that frankly I just don’t want to engage with because it’s pure nonsense.

Music break

Part Two

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So on August 22, an atheist (Matt Wilbourn) from Muskogee, OK tried to donate a hundred bucks to a home for children in his area. He filled out all the paperwork and at the bottom of the form it asked if there was a person or organization that he wanted to put the donation in memory of; he put the Muskogee Atheist Community. Later, someone from the home (The Murrow Indian Children’s Home) called him at work and told him that they wouldn’t accept his donation, “because it would go against everything they believe in."

Apparently, the home is primarily funded by the American Baptist Churches Association. The implication being that the money coming from atheists wasn’t good because they were mainly a Christian organization. So as a counter, Matt offered them 250 dollars thinking that they would accept it if it was more. After they rejected that, Matt and his wife Keli started a GoFundMe page with the mindset that at some point the amount raised would be too high for them to reject it. On the 24th, they had raised around 11 thousand 500 dollars and when asked about it the organization that runs the children’s home still said they would reject the money because they “don’t trust him’ and “think he’s using it to get more publicity for his organization”.

According to the updates on the GoFundMe page, they found a way to get 5 grand to the children’s home either anonymously or through a supporting church that realizes the value of good will even if it’s from atheists. The rest of the over 28 thousand dollars that they raised will be going to Camp Quest; a camp for critical thinking and science education for kids.

The story keeps going though, a Christian (Tracy Hoos) started a GoFundMe in an attempt to raise more money than the atheists could. The description of his GoFundMe page made it clear that he completely missed the point of what was happening and ultimately atheists started donating to his page just to get some money to the children’s home. After that he shut down his GoFundMe page.

So, I’m not sure if this is actually legal or not. It seems like sometimes anything goes as far as charities are concerned but I don’t think any reasonable organization would treat a potential donor the way that the The Murrow Indian Children’s Home treated Matt Willbourn.

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Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you in a couple weeks when we have Steven Novella from the Skeptic's Guide To The Universe.